Arts and Culture

Years ago I was a contestant in a live, Jeopardy-like quiz show hosted by conductor Peter Bay and the RPO at the Finger Lakes Performing Arts Center. Fresh out of college, I thought I knew a lot about music.Boy, did I eat humble pie.

Listeners from England and Rochester guessed (correctly) Thursday's mystery piece. At 6:40 a.m. we heard a waltz from a ballet composed in 1875 as a commission for the Russian Imperial Theatres in Moscow: Valse intrada I from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. It was unsuccessful after its first year of performance.

Congratulations to Susan in Alfred and Bob listening in Rochester.They identified Wednesday’s mystery piece, a suite of waltzes by one of the most remarkable composers of the 20th century.He “ran the gamut of styles without losing his own,” writes cellist David Moore

Robert SchumannToday we heard Johnathan Biss playing a selection from Robert Schumann’s Papillons (Butterflies).He "made himself a new ideal world in which he moved almost as he wills," according to one contemporary critic.Musicians are celebratin

Mozart, sort of Congratulations to Bob and Kristi who both guessed today's mystery piece, the Overture to The Magic Flute by Wolfgang Mozart. We heard the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Leopold Hager. (Novalis 150041.) Monday's mystery involves The Bad News Bears.